Comment on Valve's new hardware will NOT be loss leaders

hperrin@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

• AppleTea@lemmy.zip ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Ok, but R&D on a given product eventually stops. Over the lifetime of a good, it becomes a smaller and smaller proportion of overall costs.

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• Nilz@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  …But then in turn they’ll earn money with Steam sales, so they’ll be earning money.

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  • hperrin@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Yes, but that’s a different sale. My point is it can still be considered a loss leader if they sell it at cost. It took them many millions to develop it, so overall they would be losing money on the hardware sales.

    That’s as opposed to something like Costco’s hot dogs. There was no R&D there, so if they sold it at cost, I wouldn’t consider it a loss leader.

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